"Best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in Britain"

[Duncan Head]

The newly-excavated Must Farm site in Cambridgeshire with some remarkably well preserved houses -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-35280290
http://www.mustfarm.com/progress/site-diary-12-discovering-our-first-house/

Nothing military, but very interesting finds. The textile fragment illustrated is"weft-twined"; a form of twining is the technique used for the Masada fragments that Hero Grainger-Taylor identifies as linen armour, possibly pteryges, in her article in Wearing the Cloak that I reviewed a couple of years ago in Slingshot.

Edit: And I see now from the article just added to http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/12/a-bronze-age-pompeii-archaeologists-hail-discovery-of-peterborough-site that there have been a few bronze weapons found.

[Erpingham]

It would have been a strange Fen Bronze Age village not to have weapons about, based on previous excavations.

[Patrick Waterson]

Catastrophes are not very nice to live through, but those enduring them can comfort themselves with the thought that they do constitute a boon for future archaeologists.  

There seems to be a complex of Iron Age dwellings and 'infrastructure' in the area (e.g. the boats which came to light in 2013), so with luck and a bit of dedicated archaeology there will be more to find in the region.

Thanks, Duncan.

[Imperial Dave]

update on this find here for starters:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-35428554

[Imperial Dave]

another update...BBC following this story quite regularly

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-35492599

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks for keeping us updated, Dave.

One hopes the contents of the box will prove to be interesting.

[Imperial Dave]

yet another update....BBC keeping this story in its sights

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-35598578

[Duncan Head]

The Guardian version - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/19/archaeologists-excavate-bronze-age-wheel-cambridgeshire - explains that neat round hole you can see near the rim of the wheel!

[Imperial Dave]

ah yes, thats a better update Duncan, a bit more detail than the BBC

[Jim Webster]

Looks like they've finally found the wheels of the Airfix Ancient Briton Chariot 

[Imperial Dave]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-35659206

Aunty Beeb still following this

[Patrick Waterson]

One does admire, or perhaps note, the dedication of the archaeologists:

"Dr Karl Harrison has been given the "phenomenally exciting" task of examining the charred roundhouse timbers ..."

There is however a certain self-negating factor in this explanation for the fire:

"It could have been a deliberate fire to clear the site for a new house ..."

[Imperial Dave]

setting fire to the house and then leaving it in situ before building over it does not seem likely it has to be said

[Erpingham]

Archaeologists are trained to consider not just the obvious but the less immediate possibilities, if possible based on anthropological parallels.   So doubtless, some culture somewhere routinely burned down their old house before building another one.  This house, however, was full of kit, including one of the wheels of their cart, which seems odd for such a ritual.

[Jim Webster]

Some cultures burned down the house, but with the inhabitants fastened inside it